For Those I Love Carving The Stone
Released Aug 8, 2025 September Recordings
Established consensus 5 professional reviews Updated Oct 1, 2026
Strong critical consensus
For Those I Love's Carving The Stone arrives as a raw, unflinching portrait of home, grief and working-class life that critics largely hail as a triumph.
How ChoruScore worksCritics' Top Tracks
The songs critics returned to most
Mirror
5 critic mentions
“If I’m going to bleed, then make me bleed with a blade that I can see,” — New Musical Express (NME)
Carving The Stone
5 critic mentions
“On the title track, one of the record’s standout singles, Balfe delivers his most vivid storytelling yet.” — Clash Music
No Scheme
5 critic mentions
“When Balfe’s rising tone suddenly drops to a dejected mutter towards the end of ‘No Scheme’, it is the sound of anger hardening into resentment.” — New Musical Express (NME)
Full critic consensus
For Those I Love's Carving The Stone arrives as a raw, unflinching portrait of home, grief and working-class life that critics largely hail as a triumph. Across five professional reviews the record earned an 86/100 consensus score, with reviewers repeatedly pointing to visceral lyricism and the album's blend of folk intimacy and industrial techno textures as its defining strengths. The result feels less like a tidy statement than a city map marked by memory, anger and hope.
Critics consistently name “Mirror” and the title piece “Carving The Stone” among the best songs on Carving The Stone, while “No Scheme” and “Civic” also emerge as standout tracks. Reviewers praise how “Mirror” channels fury into a thumping techno pulse, how “Carving The Stone” opens with dramatic synths and narrative clarity, and how “No Scheme” condenses social critique into rapid, potent images. Themes of nostalgia and youth, surveillance, gentrification, community violence, male mental health and the tension between love of home and the impulse to leave thread through the record, giving its political insights a painfully personal center.
While some critics emphasize the album's relentless bluntness and civic grief, others highlight moments of tenderness and life-affirmation that prevent the politics from flattening the emotion. The critical consensus suggests Carving The Stone is both a bold stylistic fusion and an emotionally precise work—a collection whose best tracks stick because they marry meticulous storytelling to urgent, often danceable production. For readers asking whether Carving The Stone is worth hearing, the chorus of professional reviews points to an essential, memorable set of songs that confirm David Balfe's stature as a storyteller of his place and time.
Track Ratings
How critics rated each track, relative to this album (0-100). Only tracks that made critics feel something are rated.
Carving The Stone
No Quiet
No Scheme
The Ox / The Afters
Civic
Mirror
This Is Not The Place I Belong
Of The Sorrows
I Came Back To See The Stone Had Moved
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What Critics Are Saying
Deep insights from 5 critics who reviewed this album
Critic's Take
In his disarmingly direct voice, For Those I Love makes Carving The Stone feel like a map of a city that refuses simple answers, and the best songs - “This Is Not The Place I Belong” and “Mirror” - show why. Balfe’s spoken-word clarity and stylish beatmaking render small portraits into hard, humane snapshots, so when “This Is Not The Place I Belong” staggers between pride and resignation, and “Mirror” snaps with fury, you hear the album’s heart. The record’s musical shapeshifts - from “No Quiet”’s mid-tempo groove to “Mirror”’s thumping techno - underline why these tracks stand out as the best on Carving The Stone.
Key Points
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The best song is 'This Is Not The Place I Belong' because it crystallises the album’s tension between pride and the impulse to leave.
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The album’s core strengths are Balfe’s precise spoken-word delivery, vivid city portraits, and inventive fusion of folk elements with electronic production.
Themes
Ho
Critic's Take
For Those I Love returns with Carving The Stone, where the best tracks - “No Scheme” and “Mirror” - crystallize David Balfe's furious clarity. McGoran's voice emphasises how “No Scheme” devastates with rapid, potent images, and how “Mirror” lets that anger find a caustic techno edge. The opener “Carving The Stone” is praised for its big, dramatic synths that set the album's tone, making these the best songs on Carving The Stone for listeners seeking sharp politics and relentless lyricism. The review reads like a primer on the best tracks on Carving The Stone, naming moments that hit hardest and linger longest.
Key Points
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The best song is “No Scheme” for its devastating, rapid-fire imagery and incisive lyricism.
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The album's strengths are its sharp political focus, vivid storytelling, and production that gives the lyrics a pulsating, virulent edge.
Themes
Critic's Take
For Those I Love remains defiantly political and painfully personal on Carving The Stone, where the best songs - notably “No Scheme” and “Mirror” - splice furious social critique with dance-floor energy. Rachel Aroesti's voice here is measured and elegiac, praising how “No Scheme” chronicles lives lived above their means while “Mirror” rages at nationalist hypocrisy, making them the album's clearest highlights. The record trades direct bereavement for a bruised, civic grief, and those two tracks cut deepest because they marry brutal observation to bursts of strange joy. This is an album where meaning outstrips prettiness, and the best tracks are the ones that refuse consolation.
Key Points
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No Scheme is the album's best track because it pairs vivid social observation with energetic rave production.
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The album's core strength is its focused social commentary set against bursts of electronic joy.
Critic's Take
On For Those I Love's Carving The Stone the reviewer foregrounds the album's strongest moments, naming “Carving The Stone” and “Mirror” as key tracks that punch through the album's themes of home, grief and working-class life. The title track arrives as a punchy opener, a mirror into modern toils that pierces with lines like "Modern life makes fools of our kind now we’re older," while “Mirror” lands heavy, reflecting neighbourhood violence with a muttered, climbing thud. Elsewhere “No Scheme” and “Civic” are noted for their contrasting moods, the former swirling with teenage hedonism and the latter soaring with remembered creativity. The reviewer's measured praise frames these best tracks as evidence of Balfe's vivid storytelling and subtle genius on the record.
Key Points
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The title track is best for its punchy, piercing depiction of modern life and lost youth.
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The album's core strength is vivid, rugged storytelling set against big musical production that amplifies themes of home, grief and working-class struggle.
Themes
Critic's Take
For Those I Love's Carving The Stone finds David Balfe carving tender monuments from grief, and the best songs - notably “Carving The Stone” and “Civic” - feel like small miracles of storytelling and melody. Broyd's prose is exacting and clear, noting how the title track pairs trip-hop basslines and ambient dread with Balfe's vivid storytelling, while “Civic” offers glistening piano that slows time. The review highlights “No Scheme” as a flash of anger and “Mirror” as one of the album's most haunting moments, mapping the record's concern with time, loss and urban life. Overall, the critic presents the album as honest, politically charged and likely to stand the test of time, making the case for these as the best tracks on Carving The Stone.
Key Points
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The title track is best for its vivid storytelling and intense, matched production.
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The album's core strengths are its honest portrayal of grief, time, and working-class Dublin through precise production and lyricism.